Conditional effects of gaze on automatic imitation: the role of autistic traits

Abstract

<p>Establishing direct gaze has been shown to enhance the tendency to automatically imitate the other person’s actions, an effect that seems to be reduced in autism. Most previous studies, however, used experimental tasks that may have confounded the measurement of automatic imitation with spatial compatibility effects. This calls into question whether gaze cues regulate automatic imitation, or instead affect domain-general processes of response inhibition. Using a task that disentangled imitative from spatial compatibility effects, the current preregistered study re-examined the role of autistic traits on the modulation of automatic imitation by direct and averted gaze cues. Our results do not provide evidence for an overall significant effect of gaze on neither automatic imitation nor spatial compatibility. Nevertheless, autistic traits in our sub-clinical sample were predictive of a reduced inhibition of imitative behaviour following averted gaze, in line with previous observations in autism. Exploratory analyses further revealed that social anxiety and the ethnicity of the imitated agent should be considered as potential modulators of the gaze effects on automatic imitation in future research. Overall, our findings call for a reconsideration of the gaze effects on imitative behaviour and highlight the contextual nature of automatic imitation.</p>